So far, consumer 3D camcorders have generally hedged their bets by providing the third dimension as an addition to otherwise essentially 2D models. Panasonic’s HDC-T750 came with an attachment, and this is now just an optional extra for the HDC-TM900 and HDC-SD90. JVC, however, has decided not to do 3D by halves. The Everio GS-TD1 does shoot 2D if you want, but its primary focus is 3D, with hardware specification arranged accordingly.

You may have noticed that human beings have two separate eyes, rather than two lenses feeding a single eye. Yet the latter has been the approach taken by previous consumer 3D camcorders, with just a single sensor fed by a dual-lens arrangement. The GS-TD1, in contrast, has two parallel optical systems. There are twin lenses feeding a pair of 1/4.1in back-illuminated CMOS sensors, each with 3.32Mpixels.

This setup gives the GS-TD1 an important set of features that the Panasonic offerings lack. First, there’s no need for calibration as the 3D lens is permanently attached, so you’re always ready to shoot as soon as the device is powered up. Second, and perhaps more significantly, the twin lenses mean you can actually zoom in 3D mode. There is only a 5x factor available when shooting 3D, which is still a little miserly, but this extends to 10x in 2D mode. Even 5x is preferable to the fixed framing offered by Panasonic’s consumer 3D models so far.

The final benefit of JVC’s dual approach is that the GS-TD1 doesn’t natively record side-by-side 3D, which squeezes two anamorphic frames into a single Full HD resolution, although it can for maximum compatibility. Instead, two Full HD video streams are captured, promising much greater detail in 3D mode. To take advantage of this, the GS-TD1 records at a maximum data rate of 34Mbits/sec in 3D mode, although 2D mode is still limited by the constraints of the AVCHD standard, so tops out at 24Mbits/sec.

Andrew Fordham

June 1, 2011, 2:47 pm

I'm slightly confused by the mention of a proprietary format. How would you play back footage taken with the camcorder on a 3D TV? Do you need to use the camcorder itself or can the SDXC card be used instead?

James Morris

June 1, 2011, 5:55 pm

At the moment, you would need to use the camcorder itself, which worked very well with the TV we used for testing. We're still looking into whether there is any third-party editing or playback software with direct support.

melakfilms

July 11, 2011, 12:59 am

Yes, the footage is proprietary and one wonders what JVC had in mind by taking this particular route. Either they were uncertain that paying a team of software developers to create a set of codecs for their files would be worth the expense, or they simply have plans for something different, perhaps bigger in the future. Either way, a programmer in Europe who has been writing code for the neowave of 3D coming our way has already written a program that takes JVC's proprietary files and splits them into left eye/right eye streams. Upon hearing this, I bought the camera for work projects, purchased this man's software, and never looked back. Of course, a third element to editing this 3D data is that "muxing" your left and right eye footage together is required before you can dump the data into your editor. For this step, I purchased Cinform's NEO for 300US. I use Premiere Pro 5.5 for editing and it handles the post-muxed files perfectly and handily. So the steps are: 1.) Acquire your footage, 2.) Connect your workstation and camera via USB and grab the video files from the camera's memory, 3.) Mux the files together using Peter Wimmer's "MVC To AVI Converter" program (about 30US), 4.) Import your muxed files into your editing and begin editing. It can get convoluted at first and your Cineform settings must always remain running in the background for this all to work right. But once you get the hang of it and watch your first 3D Blu-Ray on your big screen 3D TV - it'll all seem worth it. Cheers.

melakfilms

July 11, 2011, 1:06 am

If I were to review the camera itself, I'd say that it exceeded my expectations, being one of the first dual-lens camcorders out there. The unit does incredibly well in low-light but, as always, if you can, light up your subject so compression doesn't start referencing a lot of your pixels. In nice lighting the video comes out stunning. I've read many complaints about the touch screen LCD, where the bulk of commands are held, but it hasn't bothered me at all. There is one feature I disdain about the camera and perhaps I'm too dull to figure out where the setting is : When you open the LCD, the power comes on and when you close it, the power goes off. Sometimes I want to open the LCD without the power coming on but I cannot seem to find any setting regarding this issue. The engineers at JVC must've looked at this as a time-saver, and perhaps it is for non-pros, but to me it's not necessary. Again, if it weren't for Peter Wimmer's software (MVC To AVI Converter) I would not have bought this camera. This JVC unit plus that software, which gives me control of the MP4 files, is an awesome little thing and a great 3D handheld.

Sanne v W

May 10, 2015, 2:24 am

MVC is Bluray 3D format. It would be nice to edit it natively in Sony Vegas.Looks like 3D Bluray Players or film industry are not eager to let you play mvc other than from 3d bluray or directly from the cam.The same problem with the fuji 3D AVI format. Though that can already be edited natively in Vegas.

Both formats however can't be uploaded directly in 3D to youtube. When you do, in both cases only left image shows up on youtube. The main reason is that they are backwards compatible. MVC just shows up as a single mp4 and 3D Avi as a single (mjpeg) avi in common playersVlc and wmp however show 2 seperate windows for left right floating about for 3D AVI. Very peculiar. MVC they just show as only one image.

So for now, you will have to split or render those to mp4 in side by side, or playback directly from the cameras.

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